I never had much of a taste for Tom Sawyer. Although Long Island presented some degree of adventure for my younger self, I just couldn’t appreciate Tom’s rafting the Mississippi, the racial verbiage of his time, or the adventures Tom found himself in due to his own youthful curiosity. But today, many years later, I find that I’m developing a greater appreciation for the Twain character. I’d even go so far as to say that I may be missing what Twains composite character once to represented in America’s youth.
In my neighborhood there is a boy that I’ve written off as rude, troublesome, and disrespectful. He’s the same approximate age of my son. I’ve probably chastised him about as many times as he’s meandered his way out from in front of my car with those punkish “what are you going to do about it” eyes. He’s the kid who’d give you the finger when you turn your back, steal if he felt he could get away with it, or lie to your face. This boy that I once saw, and still do see, as a wild uncontrollable delinquent has come to personify, in my mind, almost everything that is missing in today’s young people. To me this brash, mischievous, impulsive child could be, for better or for worse, a contemporary Tom Sawyer.
Contemporary society, like Tom’s Aunt Polly, is constantly trying to reign in the naturally playful and cunning spirit of America’s youth to protect and mold them into acceptable members of an increasing liberal nanny state society. In this age of political correctness there is no room for exploratory trial and error, for saying the wrong thing, or carrying something too far as a consequence of youth. A fair argument can be made that there is no longer a place for creativity in our society when a first grader can be suspended from school for sketching a crayon stick figure of a person with a gun. God forbid a High School student tries their hand at drawing a nude in art class or composes a poem along the lines of Sylvia Plath. These actions once sought and encouraged as signs of heightened creativity, may well result in psychological evaluation or suspension from school.
Not that long ago I received a phone call from my son’s interim principal. My son, who has received two consecutive citizenship awards, had been involved in an incident that the school district considers bullying. This incident was taken so seriously by the school that I received a phone call at work from the principal.
Apparently my son and three of his friends successfully intimidated two children on the playground during their 30 minute lunch break. To make matters worse these four boys picked on the very same two boys once before and got into trouble. This second occurrence, in order to properly document the transgression for the school districts legal team, required a phone call.
What egregious crime did my son and his cohorts commit? Did these kids physically touch these two boys? No. Did they surround them to make them feel small? No. Did they throw anything at them or kick dirt on them? No.
These boys are being labeled “bullies” for following two kids around the playground and calling them names. Naturally for liability reasons, the principal was not forthcoming with what names that were used to offend, who my son’s cohorts were, or who the victims of this grievous offense were. Did my son and his friends threaten violence? No, but I was assured that if the words were of a violent nature the entire matter handled much more sternly.
It’s disturbing that at a time when schools are demanding greater parent involvement in children’s education, when something occurs which requires parental guidance, instruction and/or discipline, the school’s first action is to box-out the parents and provide them only with as much information as the districts lawyer deems necessary? How can I, without sufficient information, properly measure out discipline or at least help to steer my son away from the legal snares set by the school district to make a case for expulsion based on a broad, oversensitive, interpretation of the word “bully”?
In my school days we had the fear of nuclear annihilation during the Cold War. Today the biggest threat to the development of American youth stems from petticoat bureaucrats who nervously watch and anxiously wait for any child to stray from their social template so they can assert control, authorize psychological evaluation, recommend nacotization, or at minimum provide a child with enough self doubt to provide an abundance of excuses for failure and inadequacy.
Today’s young people have never had the opportunity to live life without a care. An unfortunate consequence of the constitution’s right to pursue happiness being perverted by aging over -protective pacifist hippies into a right to be happy, to be comfortable and to never feel intimidated or inadequate. Lost in this age of knee jerk pacifist CYA polices are the necessary societal skills developed from discovery, anticipation, tact, fear, shame, and relief. Lost in this nanny state mentality are healthy aspects of personal development that can only be derived from living life, trying and learning from ones mistakes.
What type of men and women are we creating if children cannot play dodge ball, use a slide, hand out birthday invitations in class, play tag, or stand up for one sister or self in school for fear of injury, hurt feelings or worse – a lawsuit! What type of leaders can we look forward to when impulsiveness, assertiveness, ingenuity, and courage are frowned upon and punished from age five?
The consequence of too much discipline or too much rigidity in controlling children’s behavior in school is that kids are prohibited from exploring and feeling things out for themselves, from amicably problem solving among themselves and from developing measured judgment. There is no template for behavior that can be created that will ensure that every child will be successful in life, happy, or a good productive citizen. When schools suppress personal judgment and subjugate parental influence in favor of legislation, regardless of intent, they set the stage for good kids to feel isolated, inadequate, and out of control. These feelings repeated over a prolonged period of time cultivate circumstances like Columbine or Virginia Tech.
Tom Sawyer, through lack of supervision, may have been mischievous, brash, and adventuresome, but he was hardly like the “seemingly normal” ticking time bombs that are being produced by our hyper protective society. We need a bit more Tom Sawyer in our kids these days and a lot more discernment in our schools.
